


Strong at the Broken Places

by simonsaysfunction



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fix-It, Lexa Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6175252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simonsaysfunction/pseuds/simonsaysfunction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke is a healer and never again would she watch someone she loved die because of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strong at the Broken Places

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by caelzorah.

Clarke was holding Lexa’s hand too tightly.   
  
She knew, in the back of her mind, that maybe crushing the delicate bones in her grip wasn’t the best idea for a speedy recovery. In fact, in the interest of speedy recoveries Lexa would need use of her hand in the long run - once she woke up. 

 

_ If _ she woke up.   
  
No, no. She would wake up. She had to wake up. She was  _ Heda Leksa kom Triku _ . She was head of the coalition and the genius behind it. She was the driving force behind peace and inclusion. She was  _ everything _ .   
  
She must have wheezed out another pitiful sob because the healer tipped his head enough to watch her: holding Lexa’s hands in her own like she could transfer life through physical contact. The Commander was too small, too fragile, absent of the storm Clarke was used to, swaddled in bandages and salves with the jet black of her blood staining Clarke’s hands.   
  
The healer turned away again, satisfied that the distressed sound had not come from Lexa, and started to mix his herbs. The scrape of the mortar and pestle was little comfort for Clarke’s rampant mind. Her thoughts were distant - muffled as though through water, only fragments of coherency able to breach the surface.    
  
Octavia would have left for Arkadia by now, as full of venomous rage as she was when Clarke had last seen her - possibly more now that Clarke had missed their rendezvous. Lexa’s injury remained unspoken outside of the witnesses and the healer now in the room, and Octavia would not have that knowledge to tide over her indignation. She would fight for their people with or without Clarke’s assistance. And for all that Clarke knew she should have left on Octavia’s heels,  _ should _ have gone to help, with the figure beside her prone and pale as bone she simply couldn’t. But she couldn’t allow Lexa to die. Not now.    
  
Never again would she watch someone she loved die because of her.   
  
Murphy was being treated by the healer as well, though with much less consideration and far less respect. His wounds had been cleaned and bandaged and he had been given water, both under Clarke’s tired supervision. If nothing else,  _ Wanheda _ could inspire nearly as much sway as her unconscious partner. He was sitting in his own corner, head back and eyes closed. Clarke couldn’t begin to - and frankly didn’t want to - begin to imagine what was going through his mind.   
  
In direct opposition to how Clarke dealt with Murphy was Titus: her would be murderer, the reason Lexa was in the state she was. He had been banished from her sight as soon as the healer had arrived to take over from her own shaking hands and tear-soaked vision. He hadn’t argued as the guards took him away. Perhaps the shock of his sin had sunken in by then - but then, maybe he was just biding his time for later.   
  
Clarke wondered what Lexa would have done. Once upon a time she would have had the clarity of  _ jus drein jus daun _ , but things were different now. Lexa had killed Gustus for betraying her intentions, but after heeding Clarke’s counsel regarding Arkadia it was likely that the same standard could not be upheld. Her eyes wandered to the bullet on the table, glinting faintly in the light, a garish reminder of how close they had come - how close they  _ still were _ \- to losing whatever future they had dared to dream together. 

 

Titus had put that there - on that table, in the prone body before it. Clarke prayed she wouldn’t have to make that decision like she had for Emerson -  _ blood must not have blood _ . She wasn’t sure she could put the good of all above the frenetic rage in her heart.   
  
It burned - it  _ ached _ \- keener and sharper than when she had killed Finn, even. Back then she had felt the blade cutting into the flesh of her fingers as she pierced his chest, and it had been a dull cut - the defeated embers of a wildfire run its course. Now, beneath her still exterior, her blood was bubbling. It hurt to breathe, to gasp for it, to claw her way from the darkness and into the faint sliver of light; her lungs were frozen, icy and dragging, the same way they had been when Roan held her head underwater and thought her to drown.   
  
Clarke pressed her thumb against the underside of Lexa’s wrist, feeling the sluggish beat like a wounded bird against her skin. She swallowed down the lump in her throat along with the doubts, the indecision. She could save Lexa - she  _ would _ save Lexa. As if all of her medical knowledge, the insight into Grounder healing, had all been for this one singular moment.    
  
“ _ Reshop, Wanheda. _ ” 

 

The healer’s voice, kind in its gruffness from what she could tell, shattered her thoughts and brought her back to feel the crick in her neck from half-dozing, chin to her chest. She smiled, awkward and exhausted and grateful, but waited until he had moved on to check Murphy before she crawled into bed with Lexa. The last shred of her dignity was gone and all she wanted was to surround herself in her, cheek to chest to hear her pulse like soft drumbeats to lull her to sleep.   
  
It couldn’t have been long that she was allowed to doze peacefully, dreaming of Lexa’s smile and the warmth of her skin, the lazy hour they had spent wrapped in each other like they were just two girls in love with no responsibilities to anyone or anything outside themselves. She woke to commotion, naturally.

 

Clarke pried her eyes open and propped herself on her elbow, half leaning over Lexa to peer into the rest of the room. What she saw rapidly drove whatever lethargy lingered from her limbs: Murphy trying to lunge at Titus, shouting obscenities, the latter’s face drawn in a grim expression with the healer between them.    
  
“I thought I told you to get the hell out,” she snapped, fingers digging into the furs in an effort to not leap from the bed and join Murphy in attempting to throttle the erstwhile advisor.    
  
“I meant only to see how she is.”    
  
In another life, another time - perhaps one where this wasn’t all  _ because  _ of him and his attempt to frame Murphy for her own  _ murder _ \- she might have felt sympathy for the pain in his voice, the beseeching quality of his words. But this was not that life, and it only hardened her further.   
  
“She’s fighting for her life because of  _ you _ ,” Clarke trembled, fury spilling over and out into the ether like a physical force. “She could die because of  _ you _ . That’s how she is.”   
  
“I was doing what was best--”   
  
“Go  _ float _ yourself, Titus. None of this was for anyone but yourself, you sick son of a bitch. You shot her.” She could feel the tears now, hot and heavy, cutting their path down her cheeks. “You tortured Murphy and tried to frame him for killing me. This is all on you.”   
  
There was a pregnant pause, silent beyond Clarke’s labored breathing, that stretched too long. She opened her mouth to demand, again, for Titus to leave and preferably trip off one of the balconies, only for a gentle touch to brush across her arm seeking out her fingers.   
  
“Leave us, all of you,” Lexa rasped, her eyes struggling to stay open, green glazed over with pain and fatigue but undeniably lucid.   
  
Clarke couldn’t find it within herself to voice a complaint, her throat closing around half-formed words of protest as the healer pushed Titus and Murphy out, leaving the two alone as requested. Even wounded, the commander would not be denied. Clarke stayed in stunned silence, staring down at Lexa as her tired eyes slid closed again; the irregularity of her breathing told Clarke she was still conscious.   
  
“I thought you were going to die,” she said after a long moment, throat tight with the strain. Reaching out with trembling fingers she traced a reverent line along the curve of Lexa’s cheek, lingering beneath her jaw to feel her pulse again.

  
“My fight is not yet over,” Lexa grumbled. “ _ Our _ fight is not yet over.” 

  
Their hands met again, fingers intertwining - just like them, like they had only hours before, like they would for the rest of their days, inexorably together and stronger for it. Love was not weakness - no matter what Titus had taught, nor the pain they had both felt for it in the past.   
  
“I love you,” Clarke whispered against warming skin. Lexa’s reply was quiet, though no less sure for the fact.   
  
“And I you,  _ niron _ .”   


**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at theminipickle.tumblr.com!


End file.
